Some luckly subscribers have already received their copy of GameInformer, the one with the world exclusive 10 page preview of GTA 4. The following is a summary of what we've learned from the magazine. More in depth details will be posted later, with further analysis.

The Facts

The main character's name is Niko Bellic - he is an Eastern European immigrant

Bellic arrives in Liberty City as he has been receiving emails from his cousin, Roman. At the start of the game, he is the only person you know.

Roman lies to get Niko to come to Liberty City, by telling him he has women, cars and money...he is actually in huge debt. Niko thinks he will live the "American Dream".

The Statue of Liberty is now called the Statue of Happiness, while DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) is known as BOABO (Beneath the Offramp of the Algoquin Bridge Overpass).

Liberty City's similarities to New York are as follows, with 4 of the 5 boroughs being recreated: Brooklyn = Broker; Manhattan = Algonquin; Queens = Dukes; Bronx = Bohan; New Jersey = Alderney

The scale of Liberty City is slightly smaller than San Andreas, except now there are no wasted parts (with countryside for example), it is a lot more detailed.

Multiplayer modes in GTA 4 are still to be announced, however, Rockstar have said it won't be a massively multiplayer online game. They are making something interesting, fun and progressive, and which ties in with single player gameplay.

Since it's only New York, there will be no planes in the game which you can pilot. Rockstar want the game to seem realistic, i.e. you won't be needing planes.

Pedestrians are a lot more realistic, and do things such as smoke, sit on benches, read, go shopping, eat, and more...

Rockstar have been working very hard on the targeting system - expect it to be a big improvement from previous games.

After the initial loading sequence, there will be no more loading screens to sit through, not even when transitioning between interior and exterior environments

While making the game, Rockstar consulted crime experts and ex-policemen and found that being a criminal is much more difficult now than it was during previous decades, so they have tried to reflect this in the game. Expect to see people getting arrested as the police are a heavy presence.

As Rockstar North are approaching the recruitment of voice actors in a different way. We probably won't hear and recognisable voices in GTA 4 because they are looking for voices that suit the attitude of the characters - This approach is also being carried over to the soundtrack, where R* are looking for music which works well with the modern day Liberty City.

You will use a cell phone to call contacts

The visual effects of the game will be massively enhanced - the rising and setting sun will reflect off glass and light up details on buildings; the streets will have potholes and rubble. Variations in terrain are reflected in the way people walk over it.

A big part of the game is delivering story in new ways and allowing the player to plot their own destiny

GameInformer played the Xbox 360 version, and say the graphics are not representative of the final version. The final version will look better than these shots suggest

Huge thanks to demologik at GTAForums for getting the mag so quickly, and providing the pictures of it. You can discuss how you feel about GTA 4 as we learn new details in our forum.

* The main character's name is Niko Bellic (This is apparently a Croatian name)

Chris, I'm Croatian, so I know Croatian names, we never use double letters for anything! Maybe it's wrong spelling because: Niko Belic, can be a Croatian name, but last letter is not "c" it's should be a letter you don't have in alphabet. It's "ć" (you probably now seeing some stupid sigh witch is not a letter, because you PC don't have it in system)

That's when the girl gets home from work... How the hell did she manage to get a copy of the magazine... bizarre.

@Gycu: you have to get permission to post magazine scans - publishers get especially annoyed when people put them online while the magazine is on sale because it is foten detrimental to their sales - people read the info and don't bother going out to buy the mag. People are posting them already on this forum and others, I'm sure if GI browse any of our sites they'll find them and we'll be asked to take them down.

At the moment, the pics we're getting are barely readable, so they don't matter really, IMO.

Regarding the name Bellic: The reason why we all think it's Croatian is because in Croatia, a lot of names tend to end with 'ic'. I don't know of another country that. And I think with the accented c, only makes a difference to people who actually live in Croatia and speak the language, such as yourself. We may all be wrong though, maybe we won't find out just yet...

I don`t care if the pics are token down, I have everything in my mind, even though are just some new screens and the main character`s name, they can`t delete that, only if they have MIB device for erasing the memory

That's when the girl gets home from work... How the hell did she manage to get a copy of the magazine... bizarre.

@Gycu: you have to get permission to post magazine scans - publishers get especially annoyed when people put them online while the magazine is on sale because it is foten detrimental to their sales - people read the info and don't bother going out to buy the mag. People are posting them already on this forum and others, I'm sure if GI browse any of our sites they'll find them and we'll be asked to take them down.

At the moment, the pics we're getting are barely readable, so they don't matter really, IMO.

Regarding the name Bellic: The reason why we all think it's Croatian is because in Croatia, a lot of names tend to end with 'ic'. I don't know of another country that. And I think with the accented c, only makes a difference to people who actually live in Croatia and speak the language, such as yourself. We may all be wrong though, maybe we won't find out just yet...

I dont know if you know a lot about football but theres Serbian football names ending with 'ic' like Nemanja Vidic and Dejan Stefanovic so really I wouldn't say he is Croation just yet.

This sucks, what is the use of the huge NY if we cant fly? i mean one of the greatest SA features was flying and parachuting. R* just could have used another city, a city that has nothing to do with 9/11. IV just keeps on disappointing me...

This sucks, what is the use of the huge NY if we cant fly? i mean one of the greatest SA features was flying and parachuting. R* just could have used another city, a city that has nothing to do with 9/11. IV just keeps on disappointing me...

Just because there aren't any planes doesn't mean we can't fly. There could still be helicopters, as King 2003 said. I think Dan Houser is just pulling out legs a bit by say no planes.

But also, nothing has been mentioned of helicopters. He only said planes there, not all aircraft. Hmm...

Exactly.

"Bellic is not going to be riding a Unicycle or Rollerblading around, we're giving a choice of variety that feels right for the character. We are not suddenly saying there will be no more motorbikes, were keeping all of that stuff, we are keeping the same range and diversity that we had it's just going to fit the character."

I guess there is a high possibility that we'll be seeing "motorbikes" in the game.

So...maybe they mean no planes meaning no 747 and such, but ''forget'' to tell that there will be jets like Hydra in SA? And planes are much more fun then helis, you can fly them higher and they are faster. I hope there will be at least air baloons

Yeh but what about mount chiliad and the rest of the fun stuff like the badland desert with the huge insame jump stunts and everything. It's beginning to just sound like they've take Liberty and made it look nicer/added new things.

Yes this game will rock with all those features, and I hope we`ll have helicopters and bikes...

And looks like the theme will not be mafia neither gangsta, it will be a unique one, you work for yourself...

But I`m still sad about the map size, it was supposed to be at least 2x bigger, many people wanted this, but I`m cool with the map size chosen, BUT I wanted to see what`s at the end of the tunnel in Shoreside Vally, looks like we`ll never find out

Im a bit surprised by R*, according to the magazine you can call people. This was probably copied because Scarface had it, And really the graphics need to be good but not the best, they should have concentrated on more features in my opinion.

Im a bit surprised by R*, according to the magazine you can call people. This was probably copied because Scarface had it, And really the graphics need to be good but not the best, they should have concentrated on more features in my opinion.

well, maybe they copied it from scarface, but we'll probably be dissapointed if the GTA do not have the "call someone" feature, and maybe this one will be better than scarface

i mean of all the things that Tony Montana could do, he always gets mad to all of his employees, and say all the swear words you know, the character in this game, seems to be a nice guy and barely ever mad at someone.

and the graphics, i thought all of us want more features instead of the graphics, it shouldn't be the best graphic there is. and one last thing, this is just the newest information, not all the information you could find on GTA IV

There's always downloadable content which may or may not add these features. We need more info on this downloadable stuff though, hopefully the next mag preview will have it. Also, I hope OPM don't have the same preview that GI got, otherwise we'll barely get any new info which would be a shame.

I hope OPM don't have the same preview that GI got, otherwise we'll barely get any new info which would be a shame.

Yes, I hope too, well GI and OPM did the same with GTA SA, GI wrote 10 pages as a preview for SanAndreas, and I`ve heard that OPM wrote 13 pages, with more detailed game features reveal...Maybe will do the same with GTA 4, and 13 pages is enough if there are more details about the game...